Is this possible? 2 separate questions

[LarryC]

Hello everyone, I'm new here. So far this looks like a great site. I have a one year old, 500 MHz blue and white iMac with a 20 GB HD and a CD-RW, It has one GB of RAM. I am wondering what I can do to speed up my machine. I want a larger capacity HD, but who doesn't? Should I get an internal HD? or should I just get one of those external HD's that are connected using fire-wire? My 2nd question is this, is it possible to upgrade my video-card? I have 16 MB with my current card and I've read that you need at least 32 to really get all that Jaguar has to offer. Sorry to bore you with my stupid questions. Thank you in advance for your reply.

LarryC

P.S. I currently have my 20 GB HD partitioned with OS9 on one side and OS X on the other side, I thought that might be relevant. I'm only using about 10% of the capacity on each side.

 

[menoinjun]

It's actually pretty easy to replace the hard drive in those iMacs, and if you replace it with a 7200 rpm drive then you will notice a small speed increase. Other than that, I'm not sure if sonnet offers any iMac proecessor upgrades, but if you feel daring www.xlr8yourmac.com has instructions on how to overclock G3 iMacs.

As far as the video card...you're out of luck. Sorry.

-Pete

 

[MacMaster]

Originally posted by ptrauber
ther than that, I'm not sure if sonnet offers any iMac proecessor upgrades, but if you feel daring www.xlr8yourmac.com has instructions on how to overclock G3 iMacs.
-Pete

No, Sonnet or PowerLogix do not offer any processor upgrades for your iMac. The only processor upgrades that they offer are for the 233, 266, and 333 models (rev. A-D). PowerLogix offers a 400 or 500mhz G4 upgrade and Sonnet offers a 500 or 600mhz G3 upgrade. This doesn't matter though since you can't use them on you 500mhz machine.

-MacMaster

 

[King Cobra]

About Jaguar and video memory...have you seen Backtothemac's comments on one of the Jaguar betas on his G3 iBook? He says Jaguar runs extremely fast on his iBook. He also said that this 32MB of memory for Jaguar is crap (I think that's what he said, I might have cleaned it up a little ). Honestly, I think his word is right. You should be able to run the cat on your Mac with 16MB flat.

 

[Pepzhez]

I thought Apple said that you needed 16 MB VRAM to benefit from Jaguar. Am I wrong about that? I guess it's on the Jaguar system requirements page at Apple, but I'm feeling too lazy to look at the moment. Sure, I guess 32 MB VRAM would be better and it's reasonable to believe that 10,000 MB VRAM would be even better than that, so ... well, I'm certain that you'll see an increase in performance under 10.2 anyway.

I know I will be loading 10.2 into my beloved imac DVSE (500 Mhz) at the same time it goes into the G4 monster. BTW, please DO NOT waste your money on an external firewire drive if you are looking for faster performance. Here are the current specs on my imac DVSE (very similar to yours, except mine has a DVD-ROM drive):

1 GB RAM (like yours)
100 GB 7200 RPM internal HD (You'll notice, on the average, a 20-30% speed gain when going from a 5400 RPM drive to a 7200.)

Now I know that many sites and magazines will tell you NOT to put a 7200 RPM drive into the fanless imac, but I can tell you firsthand that the Western Digital 7200 RPM HD I've had in the imac for one year now actually runs as cool or even cooler than the stock 30 GB 5400 RPM drive that came with the machine, and, yes, I've had this imac doing the most processor-intensive tasks imaginable: 26 hour video renders, etc.

A 500 Mhz G3 imac is still a damn fine and relatively fast machine, particularly when outfitted with maximum RAM and a 7200 RPM internal HD. Mine runs Final Cut Pro 3.0 under OS X just fine. Sure, renders take longer than they would on a faster G4, of course, but the imac can do it, no sweat.

Plus, flame me if you want, but my graphite imac DVSE looks and feels a hell of a lot cooler than any other Mac (including my workhorse G4 dual gig) around. I love using that thing, let me tell you ...

 

[Pepzhez]

Forgot to mention ...

An internal 7200 RPM HD will be both faster and (much!) cheaper than an external f/w drive (I know, I have four of them).

It's also quite easy to change the internal HD yourself. There are illustrated instructions on the web. It's just a matter of turning your imac over, taking out a few screws, taking the cover off and putting the new HD in. Let me know if you need any help with that and I can give you step-by-step instructions. I've done it so many times (I've upgraded several friends' imacs). It only takes a few minutes and it's quite easy.

 

[LarryC]

Thanks for all of the feedback everyone, that helps a lot. I was wrong about the 32 MB thing, it is 16 I saw anothr thread dealing with that same topic which also had a link included. Thanks again guys.

 

[FattyMembrane]

larry, i have the same model imac that you do and have looked into the video options for our little machines. apparently, the quartz extreme technology that will be incorporated into 10.2 will only take advantage of agp radeons or geforces with at least 16 megs of vram. sadly, our agp rage128s with 16megs of ram do not qualify (i was livid). not only that, but the videocard is soldered to the motherboard (not attached through a regular agp slot) and therefore cannot be upgraded. the processor seems to be more difficult to replace than those in other imac models as well (there are no upgrades yet, but i have faith in the smart people at sonnet and xlr8). with all that being said, i have heard that g3 macs without support for quartz extreme are still MUCH faster than they were under 10.1 and i am placing my faith in these reports and buying 10.2 when it is released in hopes of getting some extra speed. even though we may not be on the bleeding edge of techonlogy, keep in mind that i've never gotten rid of a mac because regardless of how old it is, you can still do twice as much as with it as you could on a pc half its age.

 

[LarryC]

Thanks for the good news, like you said, even if we don't have what is needed for the quartz extreme, we still have great computers. I've already pre-ordered 10.2 and I'm looking forward to the speed increases. As far as speed goes, it's not bad now, I just wanted to know if it could be improved any, if it stayed where it is now, I'd be alright with it.

LarryC